There is a continuing interest in printed circuitry miniaturization. In most printed circuit boards in use, circuitry traces are printed by conventional methods, particularly photoresist techniques. Accessory components such as capacitors and resistors are frequently provided as discrete components and soldered onto the printed circuitry, either manually or robotically. These components occupy "real estate" on the printed circuit board and may be difficult or expensive to apply to the board.
Accordingly, structures have been proposed in which components such as capacitors and/or resistors are provided along with circuitry traces by circuitization procedures. Examples of such structures are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,079,069, 5,155,655, 5,161,086, 5,261,153, 5,347,258, and 5,466,892, the teachings of each of which are incorporated herein is by reference. Typically, a plurality of such structures are laminated together with dielectric material to form multi-layer printed circuit boards.
The present invention is directed to a method of forming a thin, circuitized laminate structure that provides both capacitors and resistors, and to the thin layer circuitized laminate structure formed therefrom.